How to make rosehip liqueur at home – 3 recipes

The French idiom “decouvrir le pot aux roses” (to find a pot of roses) means “to know the truth”, “to reveal all secrets”. In today’s article we will try to find this same pot. And then we add the necessary ingredients to the found, fill it with delicious alcohol and get the real quintessence of truth – amazing rosehip liqueur!

It would seem that the topic of rosehip drinks has been studied “from and to” – we already have articles on liqueurs, tinctures and even wines from this berry. But no – the inexhaustible fantasy of alcoholic experimenters invented several more recipes that do not fit into any of the above categories. Rosehip liqueurs are complex in taste and aroma, multi-ingredient, but quite easily reproducible drinks at home.

All of today’s recipes use fresh, fully ripe wild rose hips. It is just filled with the last rays of the autumn sun – and it is waiting for caring hands that will collect it and turn it into a wonderful alcoholic drink! Aromatics is enriched with additional additives – spices, other fruits, citrus peel, fragrant honey. The liqueur will turn out not only tasty and original, but also useful, with a large amount of ascorbic acid and other vitamins, with pronounced warming, anti-cold properties. In short, exactly what you need for the coming winter – rumored to be the coldest in the last century!

Avoid using unripe rose hips for making tinctures, especially those in which the fruits are thermally processed. Unripe berries contain critical doses of pectin – there is a risk of getting jelly instead of a drink. Ideally, the berry is harvested after the first frost. In extreme cases, you need to at least hold it in the freezer before use – a day will be enough.

Rosehip liqueur with alcohol zest

Pretty strong, sweet, expressive liquor. It must be prepared with 70% alcohol – there are not enough degrees in vodka to adsorb all the flavoring substances from the berry. Another indispensable ingredient is fragrant honey, preferably flower or acacia. Sugar in this case is not an equivalent – a lot of honey is used, at least half of the result depends on it.

How to cook:

Sort out the rosehip, remove the receptacle, wash and dry. We fill a suitable jar with berries, add thinly cut fresh zest, cinnamon, cloves. We fill the container to the top with alcohol – it must necessarily cover all the fruits. We shake. According to this recipe, the infusion takes place in sunlight – on the windowsill, for example. But in general, this moment is not fundamental – the “dark warm” place usual for our business is also suitable. Shake the jar daily. The recommended maceration period is as much as 2 months.

After that, the alcohol must be drained, the rose hips must be squeezed well. The tincture is filtered with muslin, gauze, cotton wool. We heat water and dissolve honey in it. We add honey syrup to taste – the liquor should be sweet, even very sweet, but we don’t need cloying either. Pour the drink into a jar – best of all, a high one – set it aside in a dark, cool place and do not touch it for another 2 months. Honey can give turbidity – in the process of exposure, it forms a precipitate, and we can drain the pure fraction with a tube.

And only after this stage, you can bottle the drink and conduct the first test. The liquor will be delicious right now, but it will fully open only after 3-4 months of aging in the cellar – you can taste it already under flowering rosehip bushes – beauty!

Rosehip liqueur on brandy

A recipe popular in the USA – yes, Americans also do not disdain rose hips, Rose Hip Liqueur is produced here both at home and industrially – for example, by KOVAL and others. It is used both in pure form and in cocktails. The sweetness is slightly lower than that of the previous recipe, and the cooking method is simpler.

¹ – brandy should be taken aged, in our realities any domestic “cognac” of tolerable quality will fit – one that is drunk in its pure form without much disgust. An interesting result is obtained if you replace cognac with apple or pear calvados.

² – optionally, you can also add a box of cardamom, 2 cm of vanilla pod, a pinch of nutmeg, a third of star anise – in general, any spices that you like.

How to do it:

Rosehip is washed and cleaned, dried and put into a jar along with sugar, zest and spices. Previously, each berry can be pierced with a fork to the core. The container is filled to the top with alcohol, tightly sealed and sent to a dark, warm place for at least a month. Periodically, the vessel must be shaken to improve maceration and complete dissolution of sugar.

A month later, we drain the dense viscous infusion, squeeze out the remnants of the berries. If possible, we filter the liquor, but it is not necessary to achieve perfect transparency – a light suspension is quite acceptable here. Taste and add a little more sugar if needed. In principle, it will be possible to start tasting in a couple of months, but the longer (within reasonable limits) you keep your liquor, the more whole, rounded and harmonious its taste and aroma will become!

Bonus: Cocktails with rosehip liqueur

Rosehip, pear and persimmon liqueur

According to the recipe, this liqueur is prepared on dark rum, with spices and – unexpectedly – ginger. If you don’t want to experiment, you can ignore ginger. Rosehip will give a characteristic sourness, pear – “body”, fullness of taste, and persimmon – a pleasant “astringency” that complements the harmony. We have a separate article about persimmon tinctures.

Preparation:

Peel the pear, rosehip and persimmon, wash and dry, place in a blender and grind – not to a puree state, but finely. Transfer the mass to a suitable jar, add broken spices, pour rum. Insist in a dark place for 10-14 days, shaking occasionally. After this period, strain the tincture, squeeze out the remnants of the fruit. Add liquid honey to taste and set aside in a cool place for a month. After that, decant and/or filter. It will be possible to drink rosehip, persimmon and pear liqueur after 2-3 months of aging in bottles.